Whatever Floats Yer Boat Playlists

About the Author of Fire Island
1994 would be the first time Shoshanna McCollum she set foot on Fire Island, This was when she was hired for the position of Curator at the Ocean Beach Historical Society about five years after graduating School of Visual Arts where she majored in painting. Here she met long time year-round resident, John McCollum and they wed in 1999. She was offered her first newspaper column the following year. This would lead to freelance writing for a number of local publications over the next decade, securing both state and regional journalism awards.

While Long Island has been her home for nearly 20 years, Shoshanna is a New England native, born the third of four children raised by J. David and Brina Cohen in Danvers, Massachusetts. Words, images, and story telling is in the blood as her family tree includes former U.S. Poet Laureate Howard Nemerov and the renowned photographer Diane Arbus on her mother’s side, as well as Golden-Age of Radio playwright and Academy Award nominee Norman Corwin on her father’s.

Transmitter woes!!! Our transmitter is still in rehab so you may not hear us so well over the terrestrial air waves, but you can listen online! We greatly appreciate everyone who has chipped in their nickels to help with the transmitter repairs. You can help too by going to www.wusb.fm/pledge. Thank you!

Spring is around the corner!!!
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SEA-LI 2014 Inside Social Enterprise Event

Thursday February 27th 8:30-10:30 am at Island Harvest Food Bank, 40 Marcus Avenue, Hauppauge
Learn about the partnership between Elara Foodservice Disposables, a local for-profit Social Enterprise and Island Harvest Food Bank working together to help Long Islanders in need. Enjoy a complementary breakfast, program and guided tour.
Free to attend. RSVP by February 24 at https://sea-li2014.eventbrite.cominfo@sea-li.org 631-780-4704 www.sea-li.org

Port Washington, NY January 17, 2014. Long Island Traditions and the Freeport School District are continuing their partnership that explores the traditional maritime culture in the age of Sandy and the decline of commercial and recreational fishing on Long Island. The partnership includes the 4th grade classes at the New Visions and Bayview elementary schools.

Using the fishing industry as a model, students will examine the occupational and recreational traditions of fishermen on Long Island, focusing on Nassau County’s north and south shores. They will learn about the tools and traps, boats and nets, rods and bait that are used by recreational and commercial fishermen from various communities on Long Island, identified by folklorist Nancy Solomon, executive director of Long Island Traditions.

Students will learn about the designs of tools used by fishermen such as nets, decoys, traps, fishing rods, boats and other objects that incorporate traditional design elements. They will learn about the traditional design principles embodied in these tools and how they have changed over time.

The Long Island Nature Conservancy needs volunteers hardy enough to help load their boat and travel out on The Great South Bay to seed the bay bottom with clams.
In the past three years, their Shellfish Restoration Program has restocked the bay with over 7,000,000 cherrystone clams in places where they are most likely to spawn.

The hope is that if we can reintroduce these filter feeders to the bay, we can begin to clean it through natural means. Similar efforts are being tried in The Chesapeake Bay and New York harbor with oysters.

In 1976, 40% of the bay water was filtered by clams each day. Today, due to over harvesting and water pollution, that percentage is negligible and the Great South Bay is on life support.

If you can make it then to The West Sayville Boat Basin (at the end of Atlantic Avenue) Wed, Thurs, Fri of this week starting 9 and running to 2, then throughout the fall, weather permitting, Please email Chris Clapp at The Nature Conservancy at cclapp@tnc.org or phone him at

My guest today is Ranger Eric Powers from Your Connection To Nature, Inc. (YC2N.com). He was on today to talk about some new educational opportunities on Long Island. The Master Naturalist Program (QualityParks.org), a field trip for chemistry students to the Fire Island breach to study water quality changes, and lastly, a fundraising idea for schools to create rain gardens for run-off control. For more information, contact Ranger Eric at yc2n@me.com or visit his website at YC2N.com.